Enter Michael’s new book, Your Brand: The Next Media Company. This second book takes the strategies he outlined in Smart Business, Social Business and applies them to everyday situations, proving that every brand – large and small – needs to start thinking like a media company in order to get their message out to consumers. Media companies have five characteristics that all brands can adopt in this increasingly social world:

They are content machines.

They are storytellers.

That story is relevant to someone at some time.

That content is ubiquitous.

They are agile.

The idea is not for every realtor, summer camp, and tech startup to buy advertisements and start making money off their online content. Michael instead proposes a new paradigm for these brands wherein they think more like a media company: making use of contributors (employees and customers) to tell the brand’s story.

“Customers are already telling the brand’s story,” Michael says. It’s just a matter of capturing that with intention.

He points out that tweets and Facebook posts are not indexed by Google and stresses that brands should work on including long-form content in their online presence, whether it be YouTube or blogging or the like, so that potential customers can find the brand’s story when they are looking for it. “Too many social media marketers forget about that.”

So when it comes to content, is it about speed or volume? Neither, says Michael; it’s about quality and helpfulness.

Four Your Information

How did you get involved with social media?
Michael’s first involvement with social media was as a community manager. He worked for a VOIP company called 8×8 as Director of Marketing. He created a community for customers to help solve each other’s problem.

What do you like best about social media?
“For me, it’s the personal connections.” When you’ve met someone online first, then you have a special connection with them when you finally meet them in person. It’s a kind of history that you both share.

What do you like least about social media?
“We constantly talk in a vacuum,” Michael says. People’s egos can defeat the purpose of social, and it puts a bad taste in his mouth. Constantly talking about yourself or talking down to others is not adding value, and that is the whole point. It can be easy to lose sight of that in the everyday rush of the social sphere.

If you could do a Skype call with any living person, who would it be?Malcolm Gladwell: an excellent author, a great thinker, and someone who Michael holds in high regard.